Cars & Hybrids

(Photo: General Electric)

I have seen the future of EV charging, and it's really cool looking. ECOtality just emailed me a photo of its station, which will be unveiled at the Plug-In 2010 trade show in San Jose, California, on the 27th.

I can't show it to you until then, but it's proof that we're in a designer race with these babies. ECOtality's Jonathan Read says its' "way smarter and easier to use than any other similar product. It makes it very easy for consumers to switch over to electric driving."

Soon, we'll be buying EV chargers in big-box stores, and they'll be competing to make them visually appealing. Maybe Apple will have one, too, and Steve Jobs will be up there in his jeans introducing it. Stranger things have happened.

EVs have arrived, and they're not yesterday's super-clunky nerdmobiles. If even the chargers are getting cool, we're on to something. I was watching a video of an old-technology solar EV charger in action, and the thing was so boxy, so ugly, so poorly labeled (dozens of confusing buttons) that it's no wonder they didn't take off back then.

Just look at the thing:

I can't show you the newest charger, but this was a week for innovation in the space. I got a first look at the pretty sleek Coulomb ChargePoint charger in New York this month, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced it to his city with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan in attendance. The station is one of 200 coming to New York, paid for with a $15 million Department of Energy grant.

Bloomberg plugged in a Smart car, which like most coming EVs is "smart" in more ways than one--it can interact with the grid and charge itself only at night when the rates are lower and demand is down. ECOtality's station offers "smart phone appliations for status charges and notification of completion or interruption of charge." That means you'll get a text on your phone letting you know your charge is complete.

Also just rolled out is the new public version of the WattStation, designed by Yves Behar ("the $100 laptop") for General Electric. That one's cutting edge, a rounded shape angled toward the EV owner. The cord retracts so you don't get tangled up in it, and an LED display lights up in designer colors to let you know if it's free or in service. There's a friendly "Hello!" message, too.

(Photo: Office of Mayor Bloomberg)

Behar, who helped unveil the charger in San Francisco, told me the WattStation represented "a really elegant solution. A lot of considerations went into designing a product that will end up becoming urban furniture. It was exciting to work on a product that will have such a positive impact on the urban environment."

"Urban furniture," I like that. The WattStation will certainly be better looking than the parking meters that it will replace in cities like San Francisco. The design of those municipal horrors hasn't changed in 40 years.

Contrary to what you might think, EV charging won't require a steep learning curve. You line up a standardized plug (J1772, certified by the Society of Automotive Engineers) and drive that sucker home. The car will either start charging right then, or you can make like a VCR and time your session to start later. Check in later via cellphone to make sure everything's going well. Most people will have Level 2, 220-volt charging in their garages, which means cars will be 100% ready to go in six or eight hours.

Maybe 80% of charging will be at home. Another maybe 10% at work. And the last 10% in public, at the aforementioned big-box stores that will also be selling the wall-mounted chargers. I just got off the phone with Best Buy, and the company has already got a small fleet of Mitsubishi I-MiEV plug-in cars doing duty for the Geek Squad. It's next step is putting in charging for them, and after that it's going to be offering charging to consumers. Best Buy is likely to sell $1,000 to $1,500 chargers, too. Soon they'll be just another consumer product, and you'll be buying one because you like the brushed aluminum finish.

Richard Lowenthal, CEO of Coulomb Technologies, told me in New York that his company is talking to big-box stores about offering the company's chargers at retail. GE is doing the same, said spokeswoman Megan Parker.

All this stuff is coming together to build a zero emission future that works. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Follow Jim Motavalli on Twitter. Friend us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter.

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(Photo: Jim Motavalli)

It is possible to plug in an electric car to an ordinary wall socket and, a mere 10 or 12 hours later, is will be fully charged. Wow, that's a long time!

But Britta Gross, lord and master of everything for the "range extender" Chevrolet Volt (she's the director of global energy systems and infrastructure commercialization for GM) tells me that the company's research predicts that 40 percent of the car's charging will be on 110 (Level One charging).

That means just plugging into the wall and not into a 220-volt charger (which is Level Two charging, estimated to charge a car in four to six hours).

Seconding that, Pamela Fletcher, the Volt's chief engineer, told me, "You can go home and while you're sleeping you'll be filling up your tank. A lot of the time, you'll be traveling to grandma's house and want to top up the batteries, but she won't have a charger."

Never thought of that. It's also true that 110 charging will be cheaper, and incredibly simple. Do you know how to plug in a toaster? You can do the same for an EV. The main advantage is that you save in buying the 220-volt charger itself, an expense that starts at $2,000 plus the hassle of having it installed and inspected (it can take weeks). If you have an electric dryer, you're in luck (they're 220), but if you went with gas or have older wiring, you're looking at larger bills.

If you think about it, does it matter if it takes 10 or four hours to charge the car if it's just sitting in the garage?  Maybe we'll just set it and forget it.

I was pondering this as two companies made EV charger news this week. General Electric rolled out its ultra-cool 220-volt WattStation (designed by Yves Behar of Fuseproject, who also gave us the $100 laptop).

And a competitor, Coulomb Technologies, was in New York unveiling its first ChargePoint 220-volt public charger, part of a $37 million program (funded in part by the Department of Energy) to put 4,600 free chargers around the U.S.

GE's WattStation will be ready to recharge cars
next year (Photo: General Electric)

Both companies plan to market their chargers in big-box stores, so they could become very familiar to bargain shoppers. Hmm, I need milk, cat food, and...an EV charger. Installation is extra, of course.

We won't have any idea today if 220-volt EV chargers will be in every garage by 2020. The public's experience of EVs, and how consumers will want to charge them, is a complete unknown.

Keep in mind there is also Level Three charging, 480 volts. That isn't something you'll have at home - the Starbucks or the Home Depot might have it. (Best Buy is talking to me about their plans later this week; stay tuned.)

How long does Level Three charging take? Ten minutes! You're up and on your way. But Better Place (which favors battery swapping) and others raise doubts about fast charging effects on the longevity of your battery pack. Zapping cells with that much current really heats them up.

In the end, GM may be right. A lot more people than we realize will be fine with plugging their EVs into the wall. In effect they'll take the long way home, from grandma's house or otherwise.

Follow Jim Motavalli on Twitter. Friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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Amber Roussel and Mark Austin are Team Houston, and they
got the gold (two Fiestas). (Photo: Ford Motor Company)

I have seen the future of auto marketing, and it has nothing to do with the relentless TV ads (even the funny ones) that no one believes anymore. Ford had a brilliant idea: Hire 20 teams of young and attractive Internet bloggers to promote the Ford Fiesta, sponsor a contest allowing the winner to keep not one but two cars, and then just stand back. They're going to reach the kids where they live.

Ford has just completed the second round of its Fiesta Movement promotion, and gathered in 500,000 YouTube views, 70,000 Flickr views and an awesome 10.7 million Twitter impressions. I've got to believe that will be far more effective then spending kazillions on slick 60-second spots.

Ford is hardly the only automaker latching on to the benefits of social media. All the Big Three have high-placed specialists now. Nissan is proving adept, and Toyota created an entire "Darker Side of Green" themed series to promote the new Lexus CT200h hybrid (see TDG original video of the launch below), complete with live environmental debates and Dark Ride, a noir-ish movie.

I once read a fascinating survey that showed definitively that advertisers who target urban neighborhoods with ethnically correct ads featuring celebrities inevitably fail, because the pitchmen and women are judged inauthentic in the community. The social media campaigns work because they're presumed to come from peers and neighbors.

The winner of Ford's latest contest is Team Houston, otherwise known as the young couple Mike Austin and Amber Roussel. They are media savvy: Mike is an accountant by day, but by night a photographer of music shows for Rolling Stone, the Houston Press and others. Amber plans marketing campaigns and PR events, and launches interactive media, plus takes photos for Paste.

For the Fiesta, they went all out, relentlessly Twittering, blogging and event planning. They created a mural in front of a local restaurant in a busy part of Houston and then planned a party around it. The mural is really cool, and you can see it here in context:

Team Houston also produced a short film called Pause, which was screened before Get Him to the Greek, and then hosted an after-party. Ford had asked them as part of the challenge to the competitors to pick a favorite band who'd get a chance to showcase at Bonaroo, but they decided to go beyond that and actually created a battle of the bands--with 20 Houston-based groups participating--to win the honor. Instead of judging it themselves, they brought in a celebrity panel. The event was free, but to raise money for a local charity, Noah's Kitchen, they created a VIP room with $10 admission and a silent auction. The event raised $4,000. And Tyagaraja, good luck getting to Bonaroo!

Oh yeah, the Fiesta, Ford's new small car. They loved it. "I had a chance to drive it on a 10-hour road trip to west Texas and it was really comfortable," Amber said. They actually borrowed two different cars, with the first being the Euro version. "The Sync system had a British accent and there was no ambient lighting," Mark said.

Team Houston will keep one of the two Fiestas they won, but the other goes to Noah's Kitchen. Not leaving a stone unturned, they will create a "community day" around the handover ceremony with special events. "We'll maybe plant an urban garden and then do something fun," Amber said.

For Ford, the rewards just keep on coming. Team Houston, plus high achievers from Brooklyn, Los Angeles and San Francisco will be showcased on Current TV. A lot of bang for not a lot of bucks.

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Clearwater has an eco-theme, and the Toyota Priuses and VW buses
are out in force. (Jim Motavalli photo)

I spent part of last weekend at the Clearwater Festival alongside the Hudson River in upstate New York.

The river is considerably cleaner since folk singer Pete Seeger, who lives on the Hudson in Beacon, decided to get involved in 1966 and built the sloop Clearwater (the festival's namesake) to focus attention.

The Clearwater Festival (also known as the Great Hudson River Revival) is in its 40s, and Pete Seeger (who appeared on stage this year as every year) is now in his 90s. That means a lot of graying ponytails and fraying tie-dye at the annual celebration.

I mention all this because as I was driving up to the festival I got behind two nearly identical Priuses festooned with bumper stickers (they both had the one saying "coexist") so I knew I could tailgate them all the way to the entrance. And so it proved.

(Photo: Jim Motavalli)

The Toyota Prius is everybody's favorite hybrid car, and it's the hit pick of folk singers (and their fans). There were dozens of them at Clearwater, but they were followed closely by versions of the Volkswagen Microbus (number one transport for tofu vendors).

So let it be said here that although both those vehicles have the eco stamp of approval, only one is really a green car.

(Photo: skeggy/Flickr)

It turns out that the VW Beetle and its Microbus variant (same engine) are like Rush Limbaugh to the Prius' Al Gore. One auto analyst did a back-of-the-envelope calculation for me and concluded that the mid-'60s Beetle produces more than 141% more hydrocarbons and 80% more nitrogen oxides (the main smog ingredients) than does the typical SUV the greens hate.

Even a Hummer is far cleaner for the environment (and the Hudson, for that matter), than old VWs.

(Photo: Jim Motavalli)

Yes, the Beetle was the fuel-economy champ of its time, presenting a clear alternative to Detroit's befinned excesses. They were the greenest choice then, but we've made huge advances in auto emissions since then.

Catalytic converters, which made a huge difference, weren't even introduced until the 1975 model year.

Another point worth making is that the old diesel vehicles that are often seen running on diesel at events like this (typically an old VW or Mercedes) are pretty dirty to start with, producing quite a lot of particulate matter among other pollutants. But yes, if you're going to run one of them, it's nice to know that the Department of Energy says using biodiesel reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 78.5 percent.

You can't judge cars by what they look like. I went to the debut of the Honda CR-Z hybrid last week, and it looks like a flashy two-seat sports car. It probably wouldn't look right with a "Buck Fush" bumper sticker, or a parking permit for the food coop.  But, depending on which transmission you order, it either gets 31 mpg city and 37 highway (six-speed manual) or 35/39 (a CVT automatic).

And equally important, it's an AT-PZEV. That's a California designation that means "Advanced Technology Partial Zero-Emission Vehicle." There is no cleaner exhaust outside of plug-in battery cars like the Nissan Leaf (which don't have exhaust pipes at all).

Just because a car has peace stickers and carried its occupants to Woodstock does not make it green!

Follow Jim Motavalli on Twitter. Friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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(Photo: Getty Images)

The United States has a reputation for guzzling gasoline, especially in summer, when increased demand and processing costs drive up the price by an average of 10 to 20 cents per gallon. And while the recession has helped reduce U.S. gas demand in recent years, summer heat — combined with unforeseen variables like hurricanes and oil spills — can still wreak havoc with prices at the pump.

But whether you're planning a cross-country road trip or just trying to avoid spending your paycheck on commuting, there's plenty you can do to save money on gasoline. The best strategy is to simply drive less often, maybe carpooling or biking instead, but don't feel discouraged if that's not an option.

Check out these 10 ideas for ways to cut back the amount of time and money you spend at gas stations this summer:

 

       (Chart: fueleconomy.gov)

 

1) Slow and steady wins the race
Gasoline mileage drops off in most cars once you're going faster than about 60 mph (see chart at left). For every 5 mph you drive over 60 mph, you're essentially paying an extra 24 cents per gallon of gas.

Try using cruise control on interstates and other highways to maintain a constant speed. It can also help to use your car's overdrive gears, which save fuel and engine wear by reducing your speed.

 

2) Be cool in traffic
Aggressive driving — speeding, swerving, sudden acceleration and braking — is not only dangerous, it can lower your gas mileage 33 percent on highways and 5 percent on city streets. Revving your engine while stopped is even more wasteful.

 

3) But not too cool
Air conditioning can be a big drain on gasoline, so make sure you don't just leave it on absentmindedly, and certainly don't leave it on while windows are open, even if they're just cracked. You can improve your fuel efficiency in stop-and-go traffic by turning off the A/C and rolling down the windows instead, but that's not necessarily always the best idea.

When driving above 55 mph, especially for long periods on highways, the opposite is true — open windows make a vehicle less aerodynamic by letting in air, which increases air resistance and decreases fuel efficiency. On long road trips, using air conditioning could actually improve your mileage by up to 20 percent.

 

4) Don't just sit there
On top of pointlessly pumping out greenhouse gases without actually getting you anywhere, idling automobiles also contribute to ground-level ozone, airborne particulate matter, and other near-surface air pollution. These emissions can aggravate asthma and even hinder breathing in otherwise healthy people, especially children and the elderly.

If you're just idling to warm up your car in winter, it still only needs to run about a minute. Anything beyond that is just wasting gas.

 

5) Stay in tune
Fixing a car that needs a tune-up or has failed an emissions test can improve its fuel efficiency by an average of 4 percent. More serious problems, like a faulty oxygen sensor, can reduce mileage by up to 40 percent.

And don't forget to get an oil change roughly every 3,000 miles or three months, whichever comes first (or you could look into installing an Electro-Lube Oil Refiner, which reportedly eliminates the need for oil changes while boosting efficiency 3 to 4 percent).

 

6) Get pumped
Keeping a car's tires properly inflated can improve fuel efficiency by about 3.3 percent. It's also safer and lengthens the lifespan of your tires, since under-inflated tires lose their tread quickly in addition to wasting fuel. Regular checkups for your tires' alignment and balance aren't a bad idea, either.

 

7) Take a load off
While it mainly affects smaller cars, carrying extra weight means burning extra gasoline, no matter how big your vehicle is. On average, you may be cutting your fuel efficiency by up to 2 percent for every 100 extra pounds you haul.

 

8) Develop motor skills
Using the manufacturer's recommended grade of motor oil can boost mileage by 1 to 2 percent. Try to also use the lowest grade of gasoline that's appropriate for your car, since high-octane grades cost several cents more per gallon.

Check your owner's manual to be sure, but as long as your engine doesn't start knocking, you're probably OK. Switching from premium to regular gasoline would save hundreds of dollars every year.

 

9) There's a cap for that
Gasoline can evaporate from a vehicle's fuel tank if it's able to find an opening, which is bad for your wallet and your lungs. Make sure your gas tank's cap is tightened securely after you fill up, and if the cap's threading is stripped or it fits too loosely, you might want to buy a new one.

 

10) Join the masses
Carpool or, even better, don't take a car at all — walk, ride a bike, or take mass transit. It saves you money, improves your personal health, and helps the planet by keeping greenhouse gases out of its atmosphere. See MNN's guide to greening your commute for more ideas.

 

Do you have other money-saving tips we left out? Please leave them in the comments below.

And for more ideas and information about gas prices and other fuel-efficiency issues, check out these related articles from MNN:

• 10 best and worst cars for fuel efficiency
• Eco-friendly tips for a 50-mile daily commute
• Turning sawdust into gasoline
• Never change your oil again
• How do oil spills and hurricanes affect gas prices?

 

Russell McLendon writes for the Mother Nature Network, where this post originally appeared.

 

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The electric Smart car in New York: an iPhone app
gives you a state-of-charge reading.
(Smart USA photo)

One of the cool things about electric cars is that they neatly sync with the technology that we carry around in our pockets.

I remember thinking it inconceivable that such a thing as a cell phone could exist, and also that we'd never have practical plug-in vehicles. Now we have both, and they complement each other.

Take the electric drive Smart car. Some 250 of them are being rolled out in the U.S., beginning in October, and in addition to a 16.5 kilowatt-hour battery pack from partner Tesla, they carry a very interesting iPhone app. A cradle sprouts from the dashboard, and when the phone is plugged in it can provide GPS directions or play music from its onboard collection.

Take it with you, and it can provide information on your battery car's state of charge, expected completion time, and location of charging stations. Forget where your car is parked, and it can find it for you.

Here's what it looks like on video:

Versions for the Blackberry and other phones are coming. Virtually all electric cars hitting the market by the end of the year and early next have a version of this technology.

You're nothing if you don't have an iPhone or iPad app for your brand, even if it's frivolous. Audi just announced that iPad users with SkyGrid access can take part in a high-def "24 Hours of Le Mans Experience" in their cars.

But EVs really do need apps, because they'll be highly interactive with the grid. What I mean is that the cars can't possibly work if they're dumb appliances that all plug in when their owners return from work at 6 p.m. That would blow every transformer on the line. Charging has to be spaced out and done mostly at night.

Since you're not going to want to get up at midnight to plug the car in, electronics have to handle the work. Your car will "talk" to the utility, which will start a charging session at the optimal after-hours time. And you'll be able to use your cell phone to initiate sessions, too.

Mike Rowand, director of advanced customer technology at Duke Power, says the utilities can handle millions of EVs. "We managed two computers in every house," he said, "and we handled air conditioning-two things that had a bigger impact than EVs will have. Plug-in vehicles will be manageable, but I don't want to minimize it as an issue." But Duke is being a bit cautious as it waits to see how big the market gets.

Doug Kim, who directs the EV readiness program at Southern California Edison (a big green car booster), said that his 50,000-square-mile, 400-community service area could have 450,000 EVs plugging in by 2020. That's a big load. To make it even more of a challenge, Kim said he expects to see EV "clustering" around some cities and communities.

He didn't say it, but expect them to be in affluent areas, like the 90210 zip code. Those clustered consumers will have an incentive to make sure they're all charging late at night: lower rates. "We want to ensure seamless service," he said, "so that mean's an EV-only rate that is a third lower than peak-rate electricity."

All this means it really will be good to have our iPhone and Blackberry taking control of EV charging. We'll be chatting in a restaurant, get a ping and discover that the car we left outside is now fully charged. That's an app with a purpose.

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City CarShare is partnering with Spride on personal car
sharing in San Francisco. (City CarShare photo)

If you love the idea of car sharing (membership services that let you access cars and trucks when you need them), you'll probably like "personal" car sharing even better. In this case, the cars belong to your friends and neighbors, and you borrow them and pay something like $5 an hour for the privilege.

A number of companies have been toying with this idea, in places from Baltimore to London, but it looks like a California company named Spride (working with San Francisco's nonprofit City CarShare) may be the first to really get it going. Why? Because they're changing California's thorny insurance laws to make the concept work.

Last week, Golden State legislators unanimously approved (75-0) a bill, introduced by Representative Dave Jones (D-Sacramento), that guarantees personal car sharers will keep their coverage intact if their cars go to work. The bill now goes to the state Senate, where chances are also good.

According to Jones, AB 1871 doesn't leave an insurance gap. It ensures that operators of any personal car-sharing service have "more than adequate" commercial insurance coverage to address any liability that occurs when the car is shared. Jones said he is "very optimistic" about his bill's chances in the state Senate "because we have demonstrated environmental benefits that will help all Californians."

This form of car sharing could be huge, because it unleashes American entrepreneurial spirit--there could be sharing pools springing up all over. Most cars sit around 95 percent of the time, so why not have them earning their keep, especially in these hard times? "It's very important that the cars people already own be better utilized," said Sarah Moussa, a field representative for Assemblyman Jones.

There are some caveats we have to think about here: who inspects cars to make sure they're roadworthy? How will access work? Can owners call their cars back if an emergency comes up? But the logistics of car sharing (which is heavily dependent on smart cards and other IT technology) are already pretty well worked out.

Spride Share is the brainchild of Sunil Paul, a west coast clean-tech investor. He told me he could have a pilot program up and running in San Francisco six months after the governor signs a passed bill into law. "The beneficiaries of this will be the people of California," he told me. "We don't want to invest resources until we know there will be enabling legislation. He pronounced himself "super thrilled" at the vote, whose unanimity was unusual in strife-torn California.

The California legislation will doubtless have copycats around the world, and the idea may soon accelerate as fast as my neighbor's Tesla Roadster. Will he ever surrender the keys to that?

Follow Jim Motavalli on Twitter. Friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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(Photo: Peter Dazeley)

Do Americans care about fuel economy as oil spills into the Gulf of Mexico and gasoline hovers around $3 a gallon? You bet they do, though they also have a fair number of misconceptions about how to squeeze a few more miles out of every drop.

The Consumer Federation of America's (CFA) most recent survey says that if we had a 50-mile-per-gallon car fleet today, we'd save more oil than the entire proven reserves in the entire Gulf of Mexico. And people care about that.

According to Jack Gillis, author of The Car Book and a CFA spokesman, 87 percent of respondents said it is "important that the country reduce its consumption of oil," and 54 percent said it is "very important."

An amazing 65 percent of Americans surveyed support a mandated transition to a 50-mpg fuel economy standard by 2025. That's a tough standard, some 15 mpg better than the ambitious goal set by the Obama Administration (35 mpg by 2016).

"The expectations of American consumers are reasonable and achievable," Gillis said in a conference call." CFA says that Asian carmakers, compared to the U.S. competition, are offering twice as many vehicles with 30 mpg or better. "It's shocking that so few of today's cars get more than 30 mpg," he said.

Mark Cooper, CFA's research director, noted that in five years of the group's polling, the public's views have stayed remarkably consistent: Americans want less dependence on Middle Eastern oil and higher fuel-economy standards.

People care about fuel economy, but they're misinformed about how to actually achieve it. The federal government's fueleconomy.gov site (very useful to check cars' mpg) just published the "Top 10 Misconceptions About Fuel Economy."

Here are a few big myths:

• It takes more fuel to start a vehicle than it does to let it idle.
  People are really confused about this one and will leave a car idling for half an hour rather than turn it off and restart. Some kids I know started an anti-idling campaign in the suburbs and are shaming parents into shutting down their cars.
  
  Idling uses a quarter- to a half-gallon of fuel in an hour (costing you one to two cents a minute). Unless you're stalled in traffic, turn off the car when stopped for more a few minutes.

• Vehicles need to be warmed up before they're driven.
  Pshaw. That is a long-outdated notion. Today's cars are fine being driven off seconds after they're started.

• As a vehicle ages, its fuel economy decreases significantly.
  Not true. As long as it's maintained, a 10- or 15-year-old car should have like-new mileage. The key thing is maintenance - an out-of-tune car will definitely start to decline mileage-wise.

• Replacing your air filter helps your car run efficiently.
  Another outdated claim, going back to the pre-1976 carburetor days. Modern fuel-injection engines don't get economy benefits from a clean air filter.

• After-market additives and devices can dramatically improve your fuel economy.
  As readers of my story on The Blade recall, there's not much evidence that these "miracle products" do much more than drain your wallet. Both the Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Reports have weighed in on this. There are no top-secret 100-mpg add-ons out there.

• Using premium fuel improves fuel economy.
  You might as well write a check to BP if you believe this. Only use premium if your car specifies it.

Here's the complete list of myths.

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Right now, electric cars may not emit greenhouse gases themselves, but the coal-fired power plants that provide the electricity that fuels those cars do. That may be the ugly reality now, but ideally in the not too far future, EVs will juice up with clean, renewable energy.  One Japanese town is getting a jump on that beautiful future by serving as a testing ground for solar-powered electric vehicles.

Tsukuba City, Japan, which is near Tokyo, is playing host to a project brought together by various companies, including Mazda, Think Global, EnerDel and Itochu.  As part of this project, Mazda2 vehicles have been outfitted with electric drivetrains built by Think, using EnerDel lithium ion batteries.

These cars will solely fuel-up at rapid-charging stations powered by solar-powered stationary grid storage units.  The charging stations will use DC current to facilitate a quick charge.  The cars will be tested by the Tsukuba City community in a ZipCar-type set up.  The residents will have smart cards that grant them access to the cars and charging stations, track the charges and bill them for their use.

via CNET

 

GM has announced that is partnering with Hawaii utility The Gas Company to develop hydrogen fueling infrastructure on the island of Oahu.

The utility produces hydrogen along with synthetic natural gas.  Through this partnership, it will tap into its pipelines, separate the hydrogen from the natural gas and deliver it to fueling stations where it can be used by fuel cell cars.  GM says that because the hydrogen fuel will be delivered through existing infrastructure, it could be priced equally to or less than gasoline.

GM is essentially using Hawaii as a testing ground for ramping up its production and testing of fuel cell cars.  The company is working on a fuel cell system that could be ready for commercialization by 2015 and this pilot project will help pave the way for its launch.

This project is great for Hawaii too as the island state is an ideal location for fuel cell cars for a few reasons:  it has an abundant source of hydrogen fuel, it has a great need for a clean alternative to petroleum (it currently imports oil for 90 percent of its energy needs) and the state has made commitments to reduce petroleum use and to get 70 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

via GM